Well, I’m now back from Boys State, and it’s now the end of a very long, busy, adventurous month of June. At last, even though a full month of summer has already flown by, it’s now finally starting to actually feel like summer for the first time.

Overall, Boys State was an exciting and definitely eye-opening experience. But this wasn’t some trip or some camp for relaxing and having fun, no, my week at Boys State was probably the busiest week that I’ll have had during this whole summer. The way that I’ve been catching up on sleep these past few days since I got back, you’d think that I had jet lag all over again! Now that I’ve had a day or two to recover, and because my last post didn’t have many details about what the schedule of Boys State would be like, I guess it’s time that I provide a comprehensive review of what I had the opportunity to go through. (Oh, and to prove to all of my new friends from there whom I gave the link to this website that I actually do keep it up to date.)
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Tags: American Legion, Boys State, interviews, mock government, newspaper, Parliamentarian, Sacramento, Superintendent of Public Instruction, travel

Well first of all, I am back from China. I got back six days ago–last Friday, but between getting caught up and getting over jet lag and watching two weeks worth of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I’ve been a little delayed in getting a blog post up and out. But now is probably the best time, so here goes.
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Tags: beer, Beijing, Boys State, California, China, concert, earthquake, Great Wall, illness, itinerary, mock, Sichuan Province, state government, tour, trip

Well, however nervous I may or may not be, today is the day that I’m heading off to China. I’ll be back on Friday, June 13th and hopefully won’t be too far out from jet lag.

You’ll notice on my blog that I’ve added the current Beijing time (they’re 15 hours ahead of San Francisco time) up above and the current weather in Beijing so that you can see the conditions that I’m in at the time. Our trip also apparently has its own blog (obviously NOT designed by me) where you can follow what we’re doing, see our minute-by-minute schedule, etc.

Anyway, it’s time for me to get packing. Here’s hoping that I make it back in one piece!

Tags: Beijing, China, leaving, packing, tour, trip

I don’t know what it is about cartoonists, but somehow they have an uncanny ability to break through all the craziness of our world, find the core, and then present it in a way that makes everyone go “Oh yeah!” The good folks at the Joy of Tech have done this a number of times before, and while I don’t point out every awesome comic that they produce (because it would be occupying too many posts on my blog), one of their latest, Signs You May Need to Get a Life, essentially verifies many of my thoughts about our internet age. Having a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be okay, but there are people who take it to the extreme, and I think that this comic really addresses the central issue behind it: they really need to get a life. Get out of Second Life and pay more attention to your first one!

Anyway, high five to the Joy of Tech folks on this one.

Tags: comic, internet, Joy of Tech, life, thoughts, Web 2.0

All right everyone, better get your Little Red Books out and handy because I’m off to China!!!

Uhh, say what?

Well, here’s the idea. My school’s band, choir, and orchestra (with me being a member of the latter of those three) has been invited to tour and perform in Beijing, China ahead of the 2008 Olympics (which seem to be on the news constantly these days, and not for good reasons). We were also originally going to spend a few days in Xi’an, but that canceled a week or so ago due to the recent earthquake and the declining political situation in that region. However, as it is, the trip will be an 11 day/9 night stay in Beijing (with one day lost up in an airplane or two), with a couple of concerts and a hopefully-not-too-overwhelming amount of sightseeing. But before I share my itinerary, how about a little peek at everything that I’ve gone through ahead of this trip, eh?
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Tags: Beijing, China, itinerary, music, Olympics, orchestra, tour, trip